Electric Vehicles

Yeah. The Tesla Model 3, I didn't have issues with. People talk about build issues all the time, etc. but I didn't have any of those, and mine was built just a few months after production began when those discussions were all over the place. To be honest, I always thought they were blown way out of proportion. Of course some had obvious issues that should have been caught, but many people seemed to expect a $65k vehicle to be absolutely perfect. There were comments from experts in the field that have entire businesses built fixing build issues for luxury brands like Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari, etc. and they were in the comments saying that's just not the way it works. They get vehicles factory delivered for a customer and fix those issues, install protective films and wraps, etc. before the customer even sees the vehicle for the first time.

The only actual repair I had to do, that wasn't my fault, was replacing the upper control arm ball joints at about 40k which is ridiculous, but common with the Model 3 apparently. Nothing specific to my vehicle, just bad design.

The Polestar 3 having to be towed could be relatively innocuous, not a major hardware issue. At one point when I had my vehicle back for 48 hours when they thought they fixed the AC issue, the key stopped being recognized by the vehicle. I drove to Costco, put it in Park, friend when in to shop, and when they came out, the car wouldn't recognize either the phone key, or the the keycard I always have as a backup in my wallet. It never even left the vehicle cabin. Unlike Tesla... there is no way to tell/force the car to start from the app remotely, and apparently Customer Service cannot do that either. Again, this is another example of something technically possible because it's an EV, Tesla does it, but other manufacturers don't do. And you would never even think about it, if you didn't already know it existed or use it previously on another brand.

Ended up managing to get back home with a friend that works at Costco letting us borrow their car and brought the second keycard and keyfob... The fob also didn't work (could have just been dead since they charge via Qi and I don't normally use it) but luckily the second keycard did. So out of 4 ways to start the car, only one worked randomly. The Service Center was able to get it fixed pretty quickly, but that would otherwise have required it to be towed.'

I had a Tesla Ranger out to the house several times to do things that didn't require a lift. Most of my tire rotations they handled that way, I didn't have to take the car anywhere or do it myself. I replaced the cabin air filter once myself and decided it was a pain in the butt. Coming from Honda where the filter was easily accessible by dropping the glovebox and a total replacement time of about 15 seconds, to a process involving removing panels under the glovebox and center console and needing pry tools and screwdrivers all while having to hunch or stretch in weird positions to get to things and reach, I would rather pay someone else to do that than deal with that nightmare again. Tesla is not unique here, apparently it being easy like Honda generally is the oddball from what I've seen in various mechanic videos over the years.

Very few manufacturers think about maintenance, and in an EV most of that regular maintenance doesn't exist anymore, so they might forget about it even quicker since there's only a handful of things left with 90% of the parts being unnecessary without an ICE engine.